Paint Effect Vs Wall Paper

It started with a  much-coveted built-in wardrobe wall.  And of course it migrated into a complete master bedroom makeover.

Scrolling took me to an amazing Gold Metallic Marble effect wallpaper by Beaumonde  but at £466 per roll, my husband said it was cheaper to serve me divorce papers.

So to the paint store I went.  No easy feat on the South Coast. Since Homebase closed down, it’s a choice of a 30 minute drive east to Wickes or a potential hour on the A27 to cover 8 miles to the West to B&Q.

I chose a small local store called Brewers, which primarily serves the professional market but is now open to the common bewildered like myself. That must have required a whole new level of trained skill sets for their staff – who are without exception amazingly helpful and patient.

Each brand of paint they stock has a whole range of colours – some very similar but even the browns had exotic names like Hog Bristle (what if it’s a white hog), Shetland Lace (are they all chain smokers in Shetland?) and Namadji (WTF? I have no words – unusual!). And that is just the colour.  These days there is lot more choice than just Satin and Matte finish.  There is Eggshell, matte, flat matte, satin ,flat satin, flat, pearl, semi gloss, gloss, high gloss and soft sheen.  Its like a coffee menu.  Except its too expensive to try it once to see if you like it.

Searching for some human advice, I turned the corner bang into a new world of discovery -  Mix Your Own.  This involves presenting the operator with a 10p sized piece of anything of the colour you want – they discretely refused to be drawn on the most unusual item brought in for colour matching but I reckon there is a potential reality tv show in this.  Prices were so much more than I expected.  I ended up spending £48 on a 2.5 L of Caramel Latte paint.  Which looked a bit sh*t brown to me in the tin, but no I DID NOT present a sample, just went with a colour card.

Now I am a crafty individual with a specific set of skills when it comes to artistry – most of which involve a great amount of stubbornness, mess, trial and error.  I just couldn’t get the gold metallic marble effect wall paper at £466 per roll out of my mind.  And having blown £48 of the £50 budget allotted (hubs was born in Yorkshire), there was little room for wiggle.

The wall morphed from its original cream into sh*t brown – correction, apologies, ‘caramel latte’ (yeah in your dreams!) – which was far too flat and brown for my liking. And also how does 1L supposedly cover 10 square metres when my 14 square metre wall took two coats and used the entire 2.5 litre tin? That really is creative marketing as I could hardly take it back for a refund, could I?

Armed with four 36ml kids acrylic paint tubes at 50p each (mustard, dark yellow ochre, metallic gold and cardinal red seeing you asked), I rolled up my sleeves, donned my old ‘wife beater’ painting vest and crops and stepped up to the plate – well the ladder.  I mixed all three mustard, ochre and gold tubes together and added a dash of the red.  Then it was a case of donning the Marigolds, grabbing a J-Cloth and banishing the bingo wings.  Applied in circular motion, it took hours, dried ridiculously quickly – which is actually a bonus as the dogs didn’t have time to get a gold stripe – but the result is absolutely amazing.  And YES, I am saying so myself.  It looks like wallpaper but has a lovely flat metallic shine to it.

This is definitely a trick YOU can try at home.  And yes, after initially promising that if Hubs still didn’t like it at Christmas, I would repaint, he has conceded that it is ‘growing’ on him.  High praise indeed.  I will take that!